A few years ago, a group of musicians and I performed “The Musical History of the Lower East Side” in a number of venues around the city. We featured music from the many immigrant groups that have arrived on the LES over the past 400 years. Most of the groups, including the Italians, Irish, Hispanic, German and others brought music from their homeland…in many cases it connected them to their past and was one way they could pass along their heritage.
I was particularly struck by the audience and friends response to “Oyfn Pripetshik,” written by Mark Warshawsky, a Yiddish speaking Russian composer. Many told me how, when they were young, their Jewish, Eastern European/Russian grandmother, living on the LES or in the Bronx, sang this song to them, one of the most popular songs of the Jews in Eastern Europe.
You may remember the song from the film “Schindler’s List: CLICK HERE
“When, children, you will grow older…You will understand…How many tears lie in these letters…And how much crying.”